As Logan Willis waited for a deputy at a gas station, motorists were reporting that his badly injured estranged girlfriend was alive.
RIPLEY, W.Va. — Logan Willis was on the telephone with a Jackson County 911 dispatcher, saying he believed he had killed his estranged girlfriend, when other emergency calls began revealing what he did not know: The pregnant woman had regained consciousness and reached a rural road.
The simultaneous calls became an unusually detailed public record of the June 6, 2025, attack near Kenna and the law-enforcement response that followed. More than a year later, Willis, 22, pleaded guilty to attempted murder, two counts of malicious assault and domestic battery. Fifth Circuit Judge Lora Dyer sentenced him July 28 to eight to 36 years in prison and ordered the sentences to run consecutively. He must serve at least eight years before becoming eligible for parole.
Willis’ call originated from a gas station in the Kenna area after he had left the woman behind, according to authorities. Their young child was with him. In audio later released through a public-records request, Willis told a dispatcher that an argument with the child’s mother had escalated and acknowledged striking her. He believed the assault had killed her. The dispatcher worked to keep Willis at the gas station and on the telephone as a deputy was sent to meet him and take control of the situation.
Elsewhere in Jackson County, motorists were encountering a very different scene. A caller reported seeing an injured woman trying to flag down passing vehicles on Pigeon Roost Road. Another person stopped to help and contacted emergency services. The woman said she was pregnant and expressed fear that the person who assaulted her could return. Dispatchers sent deputies and medical personnel toward her location and guided the person assisting her while the response was underway.
The emergency center was therefore handling the person who later admitted the crimes and the surviving victim at almost the same time. Jackson County Sheriff Ross Mellinger later said deputies effectively had two scenes to secure. One officer needed to reach Willis at the gas station. Others had to find the woman, obtain medical care and determine where the assault had occurred. The fact that Willis had called police himself made one part of that task simpler because authorities knew where he was waiting.
Investigators said the woman had reached the roadside only after surviving a sustained assault in an isolated area. Authorities accused Willis of repeatedly beating and strangling her until she became unconscious. The criminal complaint said Willis indicated that the violence continued until she stopped breathing. Officials said he then moved her into a wooded area and left because he believed she was dead. The woman later regained consciousness and was able to travel far enough to attract the attention of motorists.
She was transported to CAMC General Hospital in Charleston. Early reports described her condition as very critical. Authorities said she had suffered numerous serious injuries but generally did not release detailed medical information. The woman was also in the late stages of pregnancy. Mellinger said investigators and medical personnel were concerned about both her survival and the pregnancy. Later public reports reviewed after Willis’ sentencing did not provide a verified outcome of the pregnancy or a detailed account of the woman’s long-term condition.
Only after the immediate emergency response did investigators begin publicly describing how the woman came to be with Willis that day. The two were estranged but shared a young child, according to Mellinger. They had arranged for Willis to have the child for the weekend. The sheriff said the woman believed she and Willis would go to Walmart to buy supplies the child needed. Instead, authorities said, Willis drove her toward the remote area where the attack occurred.
Mellinger later said he believed the expected shopping trip had been a way to persuade the woman to get into Willis’ vehicle. That claim represented the sheriff’s interpretation of the investigation. It did not become a separate jury finding because Willis ultimately entered guilty pleas. The distinction is important even after conviction: His pleas established his responsibility for the four crimes to which he admitted guilt, while broader assertions about exactly when he planned the assault must still be identified as investigators’ conclusions.
Willis was arrested after the 911 call and appeared in Jackson County Magistrate Court. Initial reporting described charges including attempted murder, malicious assault and strangulation, and his bond was set at $500,000. The publicly reported charging language evolved as the prosecution continued. On July 1, 2025, Willis waived a preliminary hearing before Magistrate Laura Pursley. Prosecutors opposed reducing his bond, and the felony case moved forward rather than being tested at a preliminary probable-cause hearing.
The case eventually bypassed a trial altogether. Willis pleaded guilty to one attempted-murder count, two malicious-assault counts and domestic battery. His guilty pleas meant prosecutors no longer had to present the entire case to a jury and prove those offenses beyond a reasonable doubt. They also meant defense lawyers did not cross-examine witnesses in a public trial or challenge the emergency recordings and other evidence before jurors. The public record therefore provides a clear outline of the events but not the evidentiary detail that a contested trial might have produced.
At sentencing, Dyer chose consecutive rather than concurrent terms. That produced an overall sentence of eight to 36 years, which local reports described as the maximum permitted under the plea arrangement. An indeterminate sentence sets a minimum and maximum period. Willis can become eligible for parole after serving the minimum eight years, but eligibility does not require his release. A later parole decision will depend on a separate process and cannot be predicted from the sentence alone.
The woman addressed Dyer before the sentence was imposed. News reports described the victim-impact statement as emotional, but no complete verified transcript was available in the sources reviewed. Her exact language is therefore not included here. Her presence in the courtroom nevertheless underscored the fact first established on the day of the attack: Willis’ belief that she had died was wrong, and the woman survived long enough to become both a witness in the investigation and a participant in the sentencing process.
The recordings also document how strangers became important to the first minutes of the case. The people who spotted the woman did not know the full circumstances of the attack. They knew only that she appeared seriously injured and needed assistance. Their calls gave dispatchers a location, and the motorist who stopped remained with her while responders were sent. Those actions allowed authorities to connect the injured woman with the separate call Willis had made and to turn quickly toward the rural area where investigators said the assault happened.
The two streams of information helped investigators establish a timeline without waiting to find Willis. He had already placed himself in contact with authorities. The woman, meanwhile, was able to provide information after surviving. Deputies could examine the location associated with the attack, review Willis’ statements, document the woman’s condition and later compare those facts with the emergency communications. The prosecution ultimately did not have to ask a jury to decide whether that evidence proved guilt because Willis admitted the four offenses.
Not every question raised by the emergency calls has been answered publicly. Officials have not released a complete inventory of the evidence collected from the vehicle and rural area. Detailed medical records have remained private, and later sentencing coverage did not establish the outcome of the woman’s pregnancy. Public reports also do not provide a full transcript of the plea proceeding explaining every factual statement Willis formally accepted in court.
What the record does establish is the unusual convergence that brought the case to authorities. One caller believed he was reporting a killing he had committed. Other callers were reporting that the woman was still alive. Those calls led to Willis’ arrest, the woman’s emergency treatment and an investigation that ultimately ended in four guilty pleas rather than a trial.
The case ended in court far differently from the way Willis described it to 911. He told a dispatcher that he believed the woman had died, while other callers were beginning to report that she had survived and reached the road. That unexpected survival gave investigators a living victim, led to an attempted-murder prosecution and, more than a year later, brought Willis before a judge for sentencing.
Author note: Last updated September 8, 2026.